IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/reecde/v20y2016i3d10.1007_s10058-016-0189-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Organizational power: Should remuneration heterogeneity mirror hierarchy?

Author

Listed:
  • Philipp E. Otto

    (European University Viadrina)

  • Friedel Bolle

    (European University Viadrina)

Abstract

We model and experimentally investigate effort levels in team production as a public good game with heterogeneous remuneration. In a hierarchically organized firm, team leaders (allocators) determine the effort levels of all team members. When the allocator receives equal payment or twice as much as the other workers, this results in the same team production, but when the allocator receives only half of what the other workers receive, team production is diminished.

Suggested Citation

  • Philipp E. Otto & Friedel Bolle, 2016. "Organizational power: Should remuneration heterogeneity mirror hierarchy?," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 20(3), pages 187-205, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:reecde:v:20:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s10058-016-0189-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s10058-016-0189-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10058-016-0189-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10058-016-0189-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brick, Ivan E. & Palmon, Oded & Wald, John K., 2006. "CEO compensation, director compensation, and firm performance: Evidence of cronyism?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 403-423, June.
    2. Andreoni, James, 1988. "Why free ride? : Strategies and learning in public goods experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 291-304, December.
    3. Martin Beckenkamp & Heike Hennig-Schmidt & Frank P. Maier-Rigaud, 2007. "Cooperation in Symmetric and Asymmetric Prisoner's Dilemma Games," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2006_25, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    4. Jonathan Maurice & Agathe Rouaix & Marc Willinger, 2013. "Income Redistribution And Public Good Provision: An Experiment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(3), pages 957-975, August.
    5. Andreas Glöckner & Bernd Irlenbusch & Sebastian Kube & Andreas Nicklisch & Hans‐Theo Normann, 2011. "Leading With(Out) Sacrifice? A Public‐Goods Experiment With A Privileged Player," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 591-597, April.
    6. Weimann, Joachim, 1994. "Individual behaviour in a free riding experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 185-200, June.
    7. Friedel Bolle & Claudia Vogel, 2011. "Power comes with responsibility—or does it?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 459-470, September.
    8. R. Mark Isaac & James M. Walker, 1988. "Group Size Effects in Public Goods Provision: The Voluntary Contributions Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(1), pages 179-199.
    9. Cherry, Todd L. & Kroll, Stephan & Shogren, Jason F., 2005. "The impact of endowment heterogeneity and origin on public good contributions: evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 357-365, July.
    10. Andre Hofmeyr & Justine Burns & Martine Visser, 2007. "Income Inequality, Reciprocity And Public Good Provision: An Experimental Analysis," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 75(3), pages 508-520, September.
    11. Kenneth Chan & Stuart Mestelman & Robert Moir & R. Muller, 1999. "Heterogeneity and the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(1), pages 5-30, August.
    12. Fabrice Etilé & Pierre Combris & Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy & Sabrina Teyssier, 2014. "Heterogeneous reactions to heterogeneity in returns from public goods," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-02076872, HAL.
    13. Fangfang Tan, 2008. "Punishment in a Linear Public Good Game with Productivity Heterogeneity," De Economist, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 269-293, September.
    14. Warr, Peter G., 1983. "The private provision of a public good is independent of the distribution of income," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 13(2-3), pages 207-211.
    15. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February.
    16. Gerlinde Fellner & Yoshio Iida & Sabine Kröger & Erika Seki, 2010. "Heterogeneous productivity in voluntary public good provision - An experimental analysis," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp133, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    17. Mark Isaac, R. & McCue, Kenneth F. & Plott, Charles R., 1985. "Public goods provision in an experimental environment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 51-74, February.
    18. Ledyard, John O., "undated". "Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research," Working Papers 861, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    19. Neslihan Uler, 2011. "Public goods provision, inequality and taxes," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(3), pages 287-306, September.
    20. Magdalena Margreiter & Matthias Sutter & Dennis Dittrich, 2005. "Individual and Collective Choice and Voting in Common Pool Resource Problem with Heterogeneous Actors," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 32(2), pages 241-271, October.
    21. Core, John E. & Holthausen, Robert W. & Larcker, David F., 1999. "Corporate governance, chief executive officer compensation, and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 371-406, March.
    22. Chan, Kenneth S. & Mestelman, Stuart & Muller, R. Andrew & Moir, Robert, 2012. "Communication, equity and the voluntary provision of a public good by heterogeneous groups," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 87-94.
    23. Laury, Susan K. & Holt, Charles A., 2008. "Voluntary Provision of Public Goods: Experimental Results with Interior Nash Equilibria," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 84, pages 792-801, Elsevier.
    24. Anderson, Lisa R. & Mellor, Jennifer M. & Milyo, Jeffrey, 2008. "Inequality and public good provision: An experimental analysis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1010-1028, June.
    25. John R. Hamman & Roberto A. Weber & Jonathan Woon, 2011. "An Experimental Investigation of Electoral Delegation and the Provision of Public Goods," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 738-752, October.
    26. Palfrey, Thomas R & Prisbrey, Jeffrey E, 1997. "Anomalous Behavior in Public Goods Experiments: How Much and Why?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 829-846, December.
    27. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy & Sabrina Teyssier, 2014. "Heterogeneous reactions to heterogeneity in returns from public goods," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 43(1), pages 195-217, June.
    28. Jürgen Fleiß & Stefan Palan, 2013. "Of Coordinators and Dictators: A Public Goods Experiment," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-24, October.
    29. Jonathan Maurice & Agathe Rouaix & Marc Willinger, 2013. "Income Redistribution And Public Good Provision: An Experiment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54, pages 957-975, August.
    30. Gary Charness & Peter Kuhn, 2007. "Does Pay Inequality Affect Worker Effort? Experimental Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(4), pages 693-723.
    31. İ. Erdem Seçilmiş & M. Cahit Güran, 2012. "Income Heterogeneity in the Voluntary Provision of Dynamic Public Goods," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(5), pages 693-707, December.
    32. Kristina Minnick & Haluk Unal & Liu Yang, 2011. "Pay for Performance? CEO Compensation and Acquirer Returns in BHCs," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(2), pages 439-472.
    33. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    34. Lisa Anderson & Jennifer Mellor & Jeffrey Milyo, 2006. "Induced heterogeneity in trust experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(3), pages 223-235, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abhijit Ramalingam & Brock V. Stoddard, 2021. "Does reducing inequality increase cooperation?​," GRU Working Paper Series GRU_2021_022, City University of Hong Kong, Department of Economics and Finance, Global Research Unit.
    2. Agathe Rouaix & Charles Figuières & Marc Willinger, 2015. "The trade-off between welfare and equality in a public good experiment," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(3), pages 601-623, October.
    3. Jonathan Maurice & Agathe Rouaix & Marc Willinger, 2013. "Income Redistribution And Public Good Provision: An Experiment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(3), pages 957-975, August.
    4. Kölle, Felix, 2015. "Heterogeneity and cooperation: The role of capability and valuation on public goods provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 120-134.
    5. Felix Koelle, 2012. "Heterogeneity and Cooperation in Privileged Groups: The Role of Capability and Valuation on Public Goods Provision," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 03-08, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences.
    6. Abhijit Ramalingam & Brock V. Stoddard, 2020. "Old habits die hard: The experience of inequality and persistence of low cooperation," Working Papers 20-07, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    7. Keser, Claudia & Markstädter, Andreas & Schmidt, Martin & Schnitzler, Cornelius, 2014. "Social costs of inequality: Heterogeneous endowments in public-good experiments," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 217, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    8. Fangfang Tan, 2008. "Punishment in a Linear Public Good Game with Productivity Heterogeneity," De Economist, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 269-293, September.
    9. Marianna Baggio & Luigi Mittone, 2016. "Experience and History: An Experimental Approach to Generational Heterogeneity," International Journal of Applied Behavioral Economics (IJABE), IGI Global, vol. 5(4), pages 1-23, October.
    10. Boris Leeuwen & Abhijit Ramalingam & David Rojo Arjona & Arthur Schram, 2019. "Centrality and cooperation in networks," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(1), pages 178-196, March.
    11. Christopher Oconnor & Li Zhang & Cary Deck, 2022. "An examination of the effect of inequality on lotteries for funding public goods," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(4), pages 733-755, August.
    12. Marianna Baggio & Luigi Mittone, 2015. "Grandparents Matter: Perspectives on Intergenerational Altruism. An Experiment on Family Dynamic Spillovers in Public Goods Games," CEEL Working Papers 1502, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    13. Andreas Löschel & Dirk Rübbelke, 2014. "On the Voluntary Provision of International Public Goods," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(322), pages 195-204, April.
    14. Khadjavi, Menusch & Lange, Andreas & Nicklisch, Andreas, 2014. "The Social Value of Transparency and Accountability: Experimental Evidence from Asymmetric Public Good Games," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100512, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Paetzel, Fabian & Traub, Stefan, 2017. "Skewness-adjusted social preferences: Experimental evidence on the relation between inequality, elite behavior, and economic efficiency," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 130-139.
    16. Gangadharan, Lata & Nikiforakis, Nikos & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Normative conflict and the limits of self-governance in heterogeneous populations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 143-156.
    17. Kreitmair, Ursula & Bower-Bir, Jacob, 2021. "Too different to solve climate change? Experimental evidence on the effects of production and benefit heterogeneity on collective action," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    18. Roman M. Sheremeta & Neslihan Uler, 2021. "The impact of taxes and wasteful government spending on giving," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 355-386, June.
    19. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kocher, Martin G. & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "Equality, equity and incentives: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 32-51.
    20. Tatsuyoshi Saijo, 2014. "The instability of the voluntary contribution mechanism," Working Papers SDES-2014-3, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Oct 2014.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public good participation; Hierarchical delegation; Principal-agent models; Employee contribution; Payment differentiation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J40 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - General
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:reecde:v:20:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s10058-016-0189-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.